On Wednesday January 28th, Alix Pearlstein spoke to a large audience at VCU. Pearlstein, a video performance artist with a background in scu;putre and dance, opened her lecture with an exert from the No Manifesto. While the work of Pearlstien was at times interesting, her speaking style is underdeveloped and distracting. She could greatly improve her stage presence with a public speaking class; using "uh" and "um" several hundered times undermines the content. She seem unsure in her explinations of her work and one might even say it felt canned at times. One of the strengths of VCUarts is being drilled on conepts and speaking with confidence about one's work. In such a setting, Pearlstein fell short.
Lecture style aside, Pearlstein's videos varied in quality and subject. She showed 5 shorts, all btween 2 and 10 minutes in length. The work that spoke to me personally was "Distance", a film from 2007. Shown dyptych style, (two frames beside each other), the film is shot in a coninuous take in which the cameras slowly switch places from their original locations at opposite ends of an empty studio. The sounds, light quality, and acting (gesture, etc) were superior to her other films. According to eva.ie , "This piece is freely inspired by Michael Snow’s seminal film from 1967, Wavelength,which he refers to as a metaphor for consciousness. It can also be seen as a metaphor for progress. Distance is intended as a consideration of the “one step forward,
two steps back” variety of progress, as well as a reflection on time passing, change,
movement towards the unknown, and the anxious anticipation of an uncertain future."
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